Sunday book pick: The rootless marriage of an Englishman and a Bengali woman in ‘Memories of Rain’

“He had come to terms with the bitter truth that the unadulterated passion he had felt for her under tropical skikes was not to last forever, that a deep intellectual void was eating away at his wonder, his enchantment.”

Sunetra Gupta’s 1992 novella, Memories of Rain, has been recently republished by Westland and Ashoka University’s Centre for the Creative and the Critical. The new edition, with a smart green jacket, resurrects the novella for a new generation of readers. Gupta is a teacher, doctor, and the author of six novels. Memories of Rain was her debut.

Rudyard Kipling once said, “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” The quote fits any number of situations, including the natural disharmony between the two halves of the globe. So, what happens when this disharmony seeps into personal relationships and marriages? Are such marriages destined to doom?

East is East, West is West

Set in London and Calcutta, Memories of Rain is a cerebral novella that ponders the East–West divide and how it plays out in marriages. How does the partner from a more conservative background adapt to a culture that has a more liberal attitude towards marriage? Furthermore, with the colonial past not too far behind, what does the West really think...

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